Admiral Beez
Superstar
That's your opinion, but without Miller we wouldn't have had Ford.
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- Thread starter SJD_Toronto
- Start date
That's your opinion, but without Miller we wouldn't have had Ford.
nfitz
Superstar
I really couldn't disagree more. Besides, Rob Ford was elected with a huge vote in his ward long before Miller ever became mayor.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
With 69 names on the ballot for Mayor, some people don't read, listen, or look at the news, nor do some even bother researching the names. They just choose names that they hear about, maybe once. Some people even look for a name that belongs in another municipality and pick one at random if they don't find it.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Dunno why it's hard to accept that Ford is a reaction to Miller. That's not an attack on Miller's record. Just an acknowledgment of the reality that for whatever reason Miller didn't sell as well in the 'burbs.
Memph
Active Member
Car tax, transit city and garbage strike actually affects the voters directly, what you mentioned does not. Some people are more interested in taxes and the provision and services than personal scandals.
cgwalnut
New Member
then why are they voting for Ford?!
with him you get unprecedented tax increases, a reduction in services, stalled transit plans and massive waste and corruption!
one must remember that Miller took every ward (except for Pitfields) in his last election.
the "Ford nation" wasn't voting against Miller specifically - they were voting against a world that they think has done them wrong... especially after the 2008 financial collapse. most every western democracy voted out those in power following this crisis - whether it was a right or left leaning gov't currently in power.
why?
because, unfortunately, the majority of people are really, really dumb.
salsa
Senior Member
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nfitz
Superstar
Anyone I've talked to has felt far more affected by the criminality and abuse of Ford than a vehicle tax or a brief long-forgotten strike. Not sure how anyone feels impacted by Transit City ...
I think the whole Miller thing is overstated - particularly as polling during the 2010 election showed Miller would beat Ford. That neither Smitherman or Pantalone polled as well as Miller, suggests that voting Ford wasn't an anti-Miller vote. For some, it's the chance to vote for something missing to them in previous elections. Whether that be beating their wife, wanting immigrants to go home, smoking crack, or wanting to make sure TTC staff never had to have a pay freeze again, or simply screwing downtown is unknown to me.
adma
Superstar
And some of the benificiariesare inadvertent--like, of those who got over 1000 votes who weren't the top 3 + Goldkind, Baskin and Don Andrews, Selina Chan might well have hit 4th place for being confused with Olivia Chow, Rocci Di Paola was right above Doug Ford's name on the ballot, and Ramnarwine Riwali was right above John Tory's name on the ballot...
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
If the SELRT opened in 2014 as planned and the Malvern LRT were completed my commute today would be far better. Thinking about it still makes my blood boil whenever I'm stuck in traffic in a noisy bus in Scarborough.
TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
I think you're kind of underplaying the garbage strike but your larger point is certainly dead-on.
Here are wards that supported Miller and then, we're to believe, ditched him for Ford because, I dunno, the unions and Transit City?
And then Ford does everything he did (which we need not recount here)...but they're cool with that? The strike made them change horses but not the crack and the lying and the insults to the various ethnic communities etc. etc.?
There's certainly some lack of proportion or something. It does seem like people can offer rote responses about why the suburbs were fed up with Miller etc. but those responses seem rather weak when you look at people dismissing Ford's criminality and other issues and standing by him. The garbage strike was bad and I think Miller misplayed it and generally overstayed his welcome but that still all pales compared to what Ford has done. If nothing else, you'd think the fact that the Fords lost so many council votes 42-2 (I'd love to see a count of how often that happened) would give one pause about what kind of mayor Rob and/or Doug would make.
I could try to wrap my head around it but it's probably best to just throw up one's hands and admit that about 1/3 of the city's population is just crackers. If people in Jane/Finch want to vote for a guy who has made any number of racist statements, up to and including use of the n-word when he's off the clock, well then they're better people than I. I'll just have to be offended for them, I guess.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I hypothesize that Ford is viewed as "one of us" in those areas, while Miller was just viewed as the best choice out of the typical political field for those voters in 2002.
kEiThZ
Superstar
A lot can change in 4 years. Just because a ward endorsed Miller once, that does not mean it would have endorsed him again.
What would have happened if he'd run against Ford?
We won't know, because it didn't happen. However, I don't think Ford's popularity came out of nowhere.
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King of Kensington
Senior Member
Miller also did decent in the suburbs in 2003 and won many wards there. But I would say that working class voters in the city's periphery were not particularly excited about either Miller or Tory. One thing for certain is that if Ford dropped out too late and it was a straight Tory-Chow race, turnout wouldn't have surged past 60% and probably would have been more like 35% in a lot of the outer wards.
Miller - a Harvard-educated Bay St. lawyer - did quite well among the wealthy for a "progressive" candidate.
Miller - a Harvard-educated Bay St. lawyer - did quite well among the wealthy for a "progressive" candidate.